


whiskey and silk and the fire you inhale

by containsquinine



Series: come what may [1]
Category: American Revolution RPF, Historical RPF, Sons of Liberty (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 23:30:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18679510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/containsquinine/pseuds/containsquinine
Summary: It's the middle of the night, Paul Revere has broken into his house and is bleeding all over the place, and who needs sleep anyway.





	whiskey and silk and the fire you inhale

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of weird and glosses over a lot of heavier emotion. But here it is regardless.

The first time it happens, Warren runs downstairs in his smalls and a sleep shirt after he hears a crash in the middle of the night. When he skids into his workroom, pistol in hand, Warren expects to find either robbers or Hutchinson’s men. He doesn’t expect Paul Revere, shirt in tatters and blood all over. Paul is bleeding heavily from what looks like a fight that went sour. Warren looks around, but Paul is the only one in the room and the back door is closed and locked. He puts the gun down on the table. As he watches, Paul steadies himself against one of the worktables in Warren’s exam room, attempting to look nonchalant. Warren feels panic pinch in his chest. He likes the silversmith, and he looks in a bad way. 

 

“Doc, I could use some help here,” Paul slurs, and then he staggers. 

 

Warren lunges for him. He gets an arm around Paul’s waist, but the grip is slick. Warren’s hand slides on blood, and Paul drops toward the floor, doing nothing to help Warren keep him from hitting the ground face first. Warren curses.

 

“Goddamnit man, try and help me,” Warren bites out from behind his teeth as he finally gains purchase against Paul’s hips. Warren hooks a hand under Paul’s belt and hauls him upright. For his part, Paul gropes at Warren’s front until he manages to find his feet. He loops his hands around Warren’s neck as he sways against him. 

 

Paul grins, inches from his face, flush against Warren, who realizes belatedly how intimately his grip on Paul’s hips is. Paul has managed to smear bloody handprints all over Warren’s shirt, and he leers at Warren, blood all over his teeth and in his smile, close enough to kiss. 

 

“That better?” Paul asks. 

 

“Get on the table before I let you bleed out on my floor,” Warren replies, narrowing his eyes at the other man. Warren refuses to budge even an inch away from Paul, despite the flush he knows is creeping up his neck. 

 

Paul throws his head back and laughs, low in his throat. It sends flickers of heat through Warren, before he maneuvers Paul onto the table and gets him on his back. Paul groans quietly at the pain as Warren lights the candelabra above the table. Warren takes stock of his patient. He can tell the shirt is gone for sure, more blood-soaked ribbons than anything else, so he cuts if off of him, and then pulls off his boots and socks, cataloguing injuries. There seem to be a couple of ribs that are either deeply bruised or broken, but other than that there don’t appear to be any clear fractures. 

 

The knife wounds will be the most dangerous, Warren thinks as he goes to the other room to set water on to heat. He gathers everything he needs to staunch the bleeding, cleanse the wounds against infection and sew up the deeper cuts. He also grabs the salves to minimize scarring, blankets, bandages, and whiskey.

 

He fills the basins with the hot water, brings them into the room as they reach temperature, and sets the cauldrons on stands close to the drains in the floor under the exam table. When he returns with the last of the basins full of steaming water, he can tell the blood loss is starting to hit Paul, and that he needs to stop it quickly. Paul isn’t making any more jokes or leering at Warren while he goes about his business. Warren douses him with the first batch of plain hot water and then water mixed with whiskey, which gets another low groan out of him. Warren’s gone for a fresh blanket when he hears Paul moan outright. He whirls and goes back into the exam room, only to stop in his tracks. 

 

Paul is clearly out of it, nearly unconscious, and probably doesn’t remember where he is. _He doesn’t know what he’s doing_ , Warren thinks wildly as he stares at his exam table where Paul Revere—mostly naked and about to get entirely so—uncoordinatedly pushes at his groin, hips flexing as he groans low in his throat. Whether it’s from pain, adrenaline, or some mix of the two Warren can’t know. Lust jolts through him, followed by shame. Paul came to Warren badly hurt and in need of a doctor, not someone to leer at him. 

 

There’s nothing for it though, so Warren goes to the table when Paul goes quiet again, and opens his belt, struggling with the wet leather. There are twin gashes high on one of Paul’s thighs that Warren needs to look at first. They’ve saturated the cloth with blood and have proceeded to drip to the floor, tinting the water pale pink. They will need to be sewn first, if Warren is to make any headway on not actually letting Paul bleed out on his exam table. 

 

As Warren starts to unlace Paul’s trousers, Paul bolts upright, pulling a knife on Warren from who knows where. His eyes are barely focused, but his aim is true, one hand holding the knife against Warren’s windpipe, the other wrapped around the back of his neck, and Warren stills immediately. 

 

“They said they’d have a little fun, and then they’d turn me in. Have me strung up,” Paul says in Warren’s ear, voice gravelly. 

 

A chill slips down Warren’s spine. “Who?” He asks. 

 

“Don’t you worry about them, Warren. They’re sleeping now, and you will be too if you get any ideas about playing town crier.” 

 

Acutely aware of the knife at his neck, Warren turns slowly, the knife’s edge catching against the stubble on his throat. 

 

“I won’t tell,” he breathes out. “Whatever it is.”

 

Warren sees Paul let go, then, sees him believe Warren. His shoulders slump and the knife slips through his bloody fingers, clatters onto the exam table. Paul’s eyes start to slide shut, and he drags Warren down to him, hand tangled in Warren’s hair. 

 

“They didn’t catch me with a lovely lady, doc,” Paul says into Warren’s throat. Warren feels the heat of Paul’s open mouth flicker against his neck, and then he passes out cold in Warren’s arms. 

 

Warren strips him the rest of the way, douses him with more water and whiskey to try and keep the infection out of the variety of scrapes and cuts he’s covered in, not to mention the deep purple bruises that start to rise on his pale skin—against his throat, his arms, ribs, hips, back. Come morning, it’s hard to imagine even an inch of Paul that won’t be black and blue. Warren covers him with blankets where he can, packs the shallower cuts, and then sews him up, starting with his thigh. 

 

It takes a frantic, sweating hour to get him stitched: an hour of Warren checking Paul’s pulse, trying to keep the shock at bay, trying to keep him from losing too much blood, trying to keep the infection out, checking his pulse again…

 

Finally he gets the last bandage taped into place. Warren checks the pulse in Paul’s wrist yet again, fingers fitting easily against the good landmarks on Paul’s wrist, and finds it fast but strong. The apocalypse probably wouldn’t take out Paul Revere. Warren sighs and washes himself quickly, getting the gore and grime off. Then Warren wrestles Paul into a spare set of soft woolen small clothes and proceeds to haul him, deadweight, up the stairs to his bedroom. 

 

Warren wants to take care of him after what happened, and it’s not as though Paul is conscious to object to the soft treatment, so Warren lets himself tuck the man into his own bed, cover him with his own quilts. Warren stares at Paul’s face, lax with the exhaustion of surviving. His eyelashes are quite long, offsetting his short nose and wide mouth. He is pale in the moonlight under his bruises, one eye blackened along with the majority of the left side of his jaw. Even sleeping there’s a slight crease between his eyebrows, and Warren knows the pain will wake him before long. For now though, he’s safe. 

 

Warren leaves to scrub down the workroom. 

 

***

 

Warren wakes up halfway on the floor, legs cramped and his back in knots from trying to sleep on the sofa he keeps downstairs. The blankets are tangled around his legs. For a moment Warren can’t tell what woke him, and then his eyes focus. Paul is standing over him, arms crossed defensively over his chest, staring down at Warren with a blank expression, still ashen under all his injuries. 

 

“I’m not contagious,” Paul says. 

 

Warren stares up at him dumbly from his strange position—mostly on the floor, the first flicker of sunrise in his eyes, blankets doing nothing to keep him warm—exhaustion clouding his mind. He can tell he isn’t decent by the feel of the quilts against his bare shins, so he doesn’t want to get up, although he probably should. When he finally fell face first onto the sofa and into instant sleep Warren was wearing trousers, but he must have gotten hot and kicked out of them in the night, leaving just his thin linen pants. 

 

“What?” Warren finally mumbles. 

 

“I know what I told you. I’m not contagious. We can share your bed without me taking liberties with your person,” Paul says. His hair is loose and tangled around his face, and even injured he looks dangerous. The scary part is that he says it with a straight face, no hint of humor or mock-scandalous behavior in his eyes. 

 

Finally Warren slides the rest of the way onto the floor and drags the blankets down to cover himself. Warren stares up at Paul, not sure what to say or how to explain himself. Finally Paul must decide he isn’t getting an answer, and he turns to go back upstairs, movements stiff and slow. He has to use his arms to hop up every other step on the stairs, left thigh completely immobilized from the stitches and heavy bandages that curl up to his hip. Warren watches him go until he realizes if he doesn’t explain himself that Paul will get dressed and leave and then never come back. 

 

Warren scrambles to his feet, then, and is rewarded with a wave of exhaustion that makes his vision dance with black spots. He grabs onto the back of the sofa and takes a deep breath. He can feel his heart pounding in his throat. 

 

When he gets to his room Warren is surprised to find Paul easing himself back into bed. He clearly feels like hell, which tells Warren what it cost to come downstairs and say what he did. 

 

“You have a wife,” Warren says. “My wife, she’s dead. But you. You have a wife.” 

 

Paul looks up at him sharply, surprise flickering across his face. After a moment he says, “We have an arrangement. It’s safer, that way.” 

 

Warren swallows. 

 

“I wasn’t worried about you taking liberties with my person,” Warren says, the words nearly sticking in his throat. For a very long heartbeat, Warren holds his breath and stares at Paul staring right back at him.

 

“Get in the bed Warren,” Paul says, voice rough. 

 

Warren slips under the quilt like he’s in a dream: Paul Revere in his clothes, in his bed, his silk stitches holding him together, hair in wild curls like a lion’s mane. Before Warren can even fully lie down, Paul grabs him and hauls Warren half on top of him, groaning even as Warren tries to shift his weight off of Paul’s many injuries. He can’t hold the position on his side without putting too much pressure on the stitches, so Warren climbs on top of him, splays his thighs over Paul’s hips. 

 

Paul smiles up at him, slow and wicked and devastating, before he fists both hands in Warren’s shirt and drags him down. He stops Warren just before their lips actually meet and holds him there, tantalizingly close. Warren’s stomach swoops at the tease, like he’s been stopped just before a fall, suspended at the precipice. Paul traces Warren’s bottom lip with his thumb and then presses into Warren’s mouth. Warren sucks automatically, tongue curling around Paul’s thumb, and groans at the surge of arousal it brings—feels himself flush bright red at the noise he makes. His eyes slide closed and then Paul kisses him hard on the mouth.

 

For all that Paul is battered and nearly half dead, he kisses Warren like he’s trying to subsume him, mouth insistent and hot. Warren opens his mouth into the kiss, wanting it deeper, messier, and Paul responds. Warren strokes carefully down Paul’s jaw and neck, the heavy muscles in his shoulders, and slides a hand into Paul’s hair, tugging on it lightly. Paul groans low in his throat and then he bites Warren’s lower lip, tugging on it with his teeth. A wave of helpless arousal surges through Warren and he moans, shivering as Paul slides a hand under his waistband and strokes his hip. 

 

The light press of Paul’s fingertips isn’t nearly enough pressure to do anything other than tickle, which Warren assumes he is doing for that exact purpose. Then Paul slides his hand further down and grabs Warren’s ass, blunt press of nails against his skin making it suddenly real in Warren’s head. Warren thrusts down into Paul before he can tell himself not to, and Paul moans brokenly, a sound of real pain even as he bucks up against Warren in turn. 

  
Warren gasps and breaks the kiss, pulling back from Paul. 

 

Paul grabs his arm, tries to hold him where he is. 

 

“It’s fine,” he says. His eyes are lidded and he’s staring at Warren’s mouth. Warren can feel the weight of the gaze between his hips. It takes all the control he’s got to sit back on his knees and hover over Paul from a slightly safer distance. 

 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Warren says. 

 

Paul smiles the way he did the night before, with blood smeared on his teeth, a feral thing in the night.

 

“The pain is the best part, Warren.” Paul wets his lips and slides a hand low against Warren’s stomach, predatory. 

 

“I feel sorry for the poor bastards who try to fight you,” Warren says and Paul laughs at that, startled and bright. 

 

“Aye,” Paul agrees. 

 

“And if you rip those stitches I spent half the night doing for you, I won’t be much inclined to redo them,” Warren says sternly. 

 

“What if I ask nicely?” Paul asks. He looks up at Warren from under his lashes, smile flitting, and Warren leans down to kiss him again, unable to resist. 

 

“You are shameless,” Warren says before he slides off Paul and collapses next to him on the mattress.

 

“Aye,” Paul agrees again, laughing. 

 

Warren laughs with him and wriggles closer so they’re pressed together from hip to ankle. 

 

Paul shifts on the bed and turns to look at Warren. His face is open and softer than Warren normally sees it when they’re out together in the same group. There is something real there instead of his disarming smile, instead of the taunts and raucous jokes, the slaps on the shoulder, the shrugs and ducking of praise. Paul traces the soft skin under Warren’s eye where it is puffy from lack of sleep. 

 

“Get some rest,” Paul says, hushed. 

 

Warren’s breath catches in his throat. If he moves too quickly he will wake and forget this dream—if he moves too quickly it won’t be real. 

 

“I think a grand breakfast will be required when we wake,” Paul says, and then he waggles his eyebrows at Warren. “At least three courses,” he continues. 

 

Warren laughs, joy blooming in his chest. 

**Author's Note:**

> Let's...pretend this is how doctors were in the 1700s. Can't have my boy patching people up without practicing aseptic technique of some sort. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
